“NO ONE A PROPHET IN HIS OWN COUNTRY.”

An immensity has been written on absenteeism, (I have written a volume on it myself,) yet it remains pretty much where it was. Every body sees and feels, (at least every body who resides in Ireland does so,) that the absence of the rich proprietors of the soil works misery for the country which endures it. Yet Macculloch’s logic is very close, if not very convincing. Under these circumstances, argument will do nothing. The deficiency is in facts. The whole data for arriving at a satisfactory conclusion have not yet been obtained; and one observation or experiment, judiciously conducted, is worth an hundred ergos. Let Mr. Macculloch, therefore, come and pay us a visit, somewhat longer than the few days he bestowed upon us at his last avatar, and his truly national perspicacity will not long remain at fault. Let me take this opportunity of recommending Ireland “to all and every one whom it may concern,” as one of the richest cadavres that ever offered itself to the inspection of the morbid anatomist,—one of the best furnished elaboratories for political analysis. No where will the suckling statesman and political economist find a richer harvest of elementary instruction, in all that it is necessary for a legislator and a citizen to avoid.

Without, however, pausing to consider what are the effects of absenteeism on the country, it may be worth while to inquire what are its consequences on the individual himself,—a theme of some importance, that has but seldom been touched upon. It is ordinarily, and in some degree justly, said, that the absentee loses immeasurably by expatriation. Unquestionably the person who derives all his importance and consequence from the possession of “lands and beeves,” will sink into the class of non-proprietors, in a foreign country; and with all his expenditure, will find it very difficult to impress on his continental acquaintance a proper respect for his title-deeds and his manors. I remember a noble lord, who held a high office in the British revenue, being much surprised, and more mortified, by finding that his official dignity procured him neither respect nor forbearance from the administrators of the French Douane. The same must pretty generally be the case with our travelling Justice Shallows, who, however capable of committing themselves, can commit no body else, beyond the boundaries of their own county. The case, however, is something different with those whose qualifications are more personal, and whose titles to esteem may be transplanted more readily than the family oaks. Man is no where an apostle in his own country; but the proverb is only true, in all its intensity, in Ireland. In a country where every one is morbidly desirous of distinction, and where the master caste has so long been every thing, personal qualities are disregarded by the privileged few, and are objects only of jealousy and dislike with the degraded many. In Ireland, there is as little affection for merit, as there is market; nor could it possibly be otherwise, in a country so governed as Ireland has been. It is not so much the fault, as the misfortune of the people; but whether fault or misfortune, it is a very good reason for rendering absentees every individual who feels within himself the desire for personal consideration, and the talent to command it by other means than “taking the trouble,” as Figaro says, “to be born to an estate.” It is not alone that such is the disposition of the public in Ireland. Were it a theatre as well disposed to reward and appreciate great endowments, as it is precisely the contrary, it would still be too limited in extent, to afford that exciting and intoxicating approbation, which rewards the labours of genius in other and happier countries.

To those who have established claims on the public, or have been fortunate enough to captivate its good will, absenteeism from Ireland is almost a duty to self; and nearly all the eminent individuals, born and educated in that country, have thought themselves justified in leaving it. Swift himself, the patriot par excellence among Irish literary characters, was a resident in his own land from necessity; and the sense of that necessity pressed for ever on his mind, embittering his latter days, and discolouring all his views, if it were not among the immediate causes of his deplorable insanity. For my own part, small as are my claims on public attention, I have every reason, perhaps, to be satisfied with whatever portion of esteem I may in any country be honoured with; but in all things there are degrees, and it is not vanity to feel and to appreciate the superior kindness of strangers, and to be sensible to distinctions, of which the worthiest and the wisest might be proud.

Upon the score of pleasure also, the absentee, it must be allowed, has a decided advantage. Divided and distracted by parties, a prey to constant turbulence, and to frequent insurrections, Ireland could never have offered much attraction, to stay the foot of the absentee. In the best times, the pleasures of the Irish capital were derived more from the hilarity and social temperament of the people, than from the physical resources of refined and enlightened amusement. Since the union, even these have “made themselves air, into which they vanished;” and the transfer of the Irish legislature to London, and the importation of British methodism to Dublin, have left the latter city nothing but a short and fitful season of balls and assemblies. All public places of amusement have closed, or have dwindled into insignificance and neglect; and however much it may be lamented, it cannot be wondered, that those who are masters of their own time, and have wealth at their disposal, should promener leur ennui ailleurs, and seek in foreign countries for those agreeable sensations and exciting pleasures which are not to be found at home.

To the student, the artist, and the philosopher, the resources of Ireland are still more limited. The libraries and collections which draw this class of persons to the greater capitals of Europe, are wholly wanting; nor is there a sufficiency of congenial talent to make society, to excite emulation, and encourage zeal. The Irish gentleman, who has been blessed or cursed with a superior education and a refined taste, is compelled to emigrate, or to mortify and place in abeyance his natural impulses. It is not, therefore, so much a matter of reproach to the absentee, as of praise and admiration to him, who from patriotism, devotes his time and his faculties to his own country, that the one resides in foreign countries, and the other at home. It is idle and vain to talk of duties, and to insist that the holders of estates are bound by their tenure to stand by the country that feeds them. Duties are only respected as far as they carry with them their own reward; and a nation has no right to claim the residence of its proprietors, if it will not, or cannot, cultivate the arts of peace, and make that residence desirable in itself. Whenever the misfortunes of Ireland have become matter of legislative discussion, British statesmen have coolly turned round upon the friends of that country and reproached them with its absenteeism, as if that were the sole and exclusive cause of all that it has suffered, and all that it must still continue to suffer. But, if even this were the truth, to whom does Ireland owe this plague spot in her social condition? I speak it not in anger, or in a spirit of wanton reproach, but the cause of all this calamity is to be found in antecedents, of which the policy of England is the first link. Long and persevering acts of national benevolence and of legislative wisdom are requisite, to do away the fatal injury of her proconsular regime, and to wipe away the stain which her character has acquired, through her wanton neglect and wilful destruction of the resources of Ireland.